But They Wonder What New Commander in Chief Will Mean for Their Future
By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 6, 2008
BAGHDAD, Nov. 5 -- As Americans flocked to polling stations on Election Day, Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan West and his men walked out of a small outpost in western Baghdad shortly after sunset, each carrying 40 pounds of gear on his back, for yet another foot patrol.
The infantrymen walked in silence on poorly lighted streets, rifles at the ready, scanning through night-vision goggles. There had been chatter all day inside their small outpost in the Dora neighborhood about the election of their next commander in chief. Most of the several dozen soldiers said they wanted a Republican in the White House. They were rooting for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the guy who has served in uniform, the guy with a son serving overseas.
The soldiers wondered: Would a Barack Obama presidency mean a speedy withdrawal from Iraq? Would an Obama White House cut defense spending? Would Americans elect a black man to the highest office? Was the focus about to shift to Afghanistan, where many in the company have served?
"A lot of the guys are still young and have a long time left in the Army," said West, 35, a platoon leader who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This election is going to define what they're going to do in the next few years."
Few soldiers of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, had the luxury of plopping down in front of their outpost's lone television set to watch election coverage. There were guard towers to man, patrols to conduct, reports to write. Because of the time difference, they would not know the result until after dawn Wednesday.
"I don't have time for it," Capt. Ryan Edwards, the company commander, said earlier in the day. "I don't worry about it. All I have time for is what happens in this country now."
West's patrol began with visits to business owners he wanted to notify about a loan program the U.S. military is launching with local banks. After nearly 10 months in Dora, the soldiers have come to know virtually every merchant in the neighborhood, every Iraqi police officer in the sector and every house.
West kissed several of his Iraqi acquaintances on the cheek, a customary greeting among Arab men who are friends.
"The big thing we're trying to do is get the bank system started and build trust between banks and the Iraqi people," West told the owner of a small, brightly lighted cellphone store.
They then moved toward darker streets, where soldiers rummaged through garbage and cracks along cement walls, looking for hidden explosives. They checked in with Sons of Iraq, U.S.-organized armed guards who man checkpoints, and later with Iraqi National Police officers.
They stopped at the home of a man who was struck by an Iraqi army vehicle months ago. Medics in West's unit reset the man's displaced hip some time ago. He was walking with crutches Tuesday night, making steady progress.
After leaving the man's house, West said he favored McCain.
"The Republicans are going to get me killed," he said wryly. "But they're going to pay me well until they do."
If units currently in Iraq are rushed to Afghanistan, he wondered, would that undermine the security gains in Dora, which just over a year ago was decimated by bombs, clashes and sectarian violence?
"Chase them out of here with the 'surge,' go surge there," he said. "Like a Ping-Pong match."
West and his men finished patrolling at 1 a.m. Polling stations on the East Coast were still open. The wide-screen television in their small dining room was set to CNN, which was reporting results from exit polls that suggested Obama would prevail.
By 2 a.m., only a couple of soldiers sat in front of the TV.
Among them was Staff Sgt. Jeremy Ziegler, 25, of Pontiac, Ill., who was supervising the soldiers on duty at the outpost's guard towers. He deployed to Afghanistan during the invasion, then served in Iraq in 2003, and was sent back to Afghanistan twice more. He has spent nearly as much of his 20s in war zones as he has at home.
"I'm a resident," he joked.
He was leery of Obama "being a Muslim," Ziegler said, repeating a discredited rumor. Obama is a Christian.
"McCain is a war hero," he said while smoking a cigarette outside, speaking above the rumble of the outpost's large generator. He liked the Republican running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, too. "They have kids in uniform. They experience what my spouse, my children and my mother are going through."
As much as he dislikes being deployed, he said, the prospect of endless deployments is preferable to the prospect of a lost war.
"If we were to pack up and leave tomorrow, this country would go back to what it was," he said. "Four thousand-some KIA" -- killed in action. "That would be 4,000-some KIA in vain. Everyone who has worked hand in hand with Americans would end up dead."
By the time the polls in California closed and the networks called the race for Obama, it was 7 a.m. in Baghdad, and a new patrol was getting ready to head out.
Soldiers wearing sweat-stained uniforms streamed into the dining hall, piled scrambled eggs and biscuits onto cardboard trays and drank watery, lukewarm coffee.
A group assembled in front of the television broke the news to the soldiers who walked through the door.
"We're all going home!" one exclaimed in jest. "What time does the plane leave?"
Another had a question for his interpreter. "What does it take to become an Iraqi citizen?"
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